


Faceless Mask of the Pained

by SonYamuri



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: A character died but not really died, Alleria - Freeform, Anduin Wrynn - Freeform, Black Empire AU, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry, Umbric, i'm sorry blizzard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26581318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonYamuri/pseuds/SonYamuri
Summary: Trading in secrets, trading in lies, operating on the fringes are all the Spymaster knows.His lost passions, lost loves are all gone, crushed under his own duty and loyalty to the crown.This is how Overlord Mathias Shaw came to be, and how his pain finally submited Stormwind under N'Zoth's eternal gaze.
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw, Mathias Shaw/Edwin VanCleef (mentioned) - Relationship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	Faceless Mask of the Pained

**Author's Note:**

> So I was farming to get Wrathion's backpack and got this mask. It called powerfully to me that in the altar when you ask how do you get it the answer is "this mask is hidden in Shadows". Then I got it (I immediately knew it was Mathias's) then the part of "His lost passions, lost loves are all gone, crushed under his own duty and loyalty to the crown" ringed something in me. And I was like "OMGGGG"
> 
> So this is the result of a whole night of crazy theories. 
> 
> Also this post was the one that helped to forge all of this: https://mobile.twitter.com/meg_emmy_james/status/1307445775081918465 THANK YOU!!!
> 
> No beta, so sorry for any mistakes.

“Sure you got everything?”

Flynn stopped in his tracks the moment he heard Mathias entering the little room that they shared in Mathias’s place, in Stormwind. The Kul Tirian pointed himself to retrieve a strange box that the SI:7 agents found and he would leave as soon as possible. It would only be a two weeks voyage, but for some reason the spy was anxious. Perhaps because Flynn would have to sail to the ocean, exactly where the N’zoth’s minions lived, though to be fair, until now there had been no signs of Old Gods activity in that zone.

“Easy, Spymaster” Flynn walked towards Mathias, giving him a dashing smile. “I’ll be fine. Not my first time at the ocean, remember?”

Flynn embraced him tightly, flushing their bodies together, tilting his head in such a way that their noses touched. Mathias closed his eyes, smelling Flynn’s scent, enjoying his warmth, the closeness. Enjoying what, due his line of work, could never really have.

Not after Edwin’s.

“You are worried because you aren’t coming with me” crooned Flynn with a smirk. “But I will be fine”.

Mathias trusted him. He knew that Flynn was a capable and independent sailor, but there was something that he had and the expirate no: relevance. He was of value to the Crown, but no Flynn. If something happened to the ship he was in, they would immediately send people to check in. But outside of him, any merchant or tourism ship would be given a deadline to arrive or report before sending a search team, and it was honestly something stupid because that dealine was three days, three days where any survivor could die, for a critic wound to kill, for someone to drown-

“Hey, you are thinking too much” Mathias closed his eyes when Flynn kissed his cheeks. “Everything will be just fine, Mattie. I’ll be back before you can say crabcake”.

They parted and Flynn returned to his preparations. 

Next day, at dawn, he went to say goodbye to Flynn. He saw him parting on his ship to the deep sea, and the Kul Tirian climbed to a mast so he could wave him goodbye and yell that he’ll miss him and he’ll be back as soon as possible, smiling in that way that had Mathias swooning since day 1. 

“Crabcake” he mumbled while, in a coy way, waved Flynn goodbye as well.

He almost begged Anduin to let him go as well, but he couldn’t. He had his duty here, in Stormwind, to the Alliance, to his Kind. He knew it. His grandma told him so, Varian told him so back then, and he was sure that Anduin would have told him so.

“Next time” Anduin would have added before dismissing him. Next time. Next time. Four times that Flynn traveled had been “the next time” and he knew, very deep inside of him, that as long it wasn’t something extremely important to the Alliance, he wouldn’t go. That hurt.

That happened as well with Edwin. Had he had the time back then, perhaps he could have talked him out of his hatred. Perhaps they could have discovered together the reality of Onyxia and avoided the butchery in the Deadmines.

Maybe. Perhaps.

Painful words that he couldn’t fix, leaving deep, painful scars in his soul, but, as his grandma said, if you used those words, they were a signal of regret, and a Spymaster could not regret anything. For the King. For the Alliance.

With a sigh, he turned around, back to his work.

⚓

Flynn’s ship never made it to the docks.

Here was Mathias, a week later after the ship went officially missing. He had to wait three painful days before asking for a rescue team, and now, four days later after sending said rescue team, they arrived with news saying that the ship had been destroyed, all the crew dead and the cargo missing. There was no signal that the Horde could have attacked them, or signal that someone attacked them at all. No gunshot wounds on the dead nor sword wounds. No wood or sails had been burned. But still, the ship had been destroyed. The crew that was not missing, had been found dead. Or partially dead, since they were able to find… pieces. The fishes had been eating well, especially the sharks.

And the reason why Mathias was in Aduin’s office right now feeling like someone had poisoned him with a paralyzing poison was the box in front of him, over the fancy desk. A box, at simple sight old and weathered, with signals that it had been a few days under the sea. 

More than the week it had been sunken amongst the ship’s debris, but not so that it had been a month. 

Perhaps it had been sunken for two weeks.

Perhaps it was sunken for a week. Or a bit more than a week.

The same time after the ship became just a bunch of debris.

Over the box there was a painfully known necklace: Flynn’s shell, the one he always wore around his neck, no matter the time or situation, and the damned thing almost seemed to glare him back mockingly. Also, he could see, gabbed over the box’s lid in trembling had, an inscription, but clear enough to be read. 

_ For Mathias. _

_ Flynn. _

“I am so sorry” said Anduin, wearing a neutral mask though his eyes betrayed him, reflecting his sadness and regret. “Truly. Please, take the time you want-”

“One day” said Mathias with such bitterness and anger that Anduin would have been offended had it not been for the spy’s gray skin and looking like he got ten years older in a few seconds. “Just one day. I’ll return to work after that”. 

“Mathias-”

“Just one day” he stood up and grabbed the box and the necklace. “I did not traveled with Flynn to this mission in order of fulfill my  _ work _ . If I leave it like this, then Flynn died in vain. Besides, I do not need those days off” he stared at the box, avoiding Anduin’s eyes. “Not anymore”.

⚓

When he arrived at the SI:7 quarters he was not surprised to find Valeera already waiting for him. They shared a look in silence until she broke the moment to stare the box Mathias was carrying under his arm.

“You were right, Valeera” Mathias mumbled while he walked into his office, directly to his desk. “Happiness is a fleety thing”. 

“It happens when you take a chance or two,” she said, softly. “But remember, Shaw: all the things we treasure, all the ones we love, are the things we must leave behind. Is part of who we are. Flynn knew this, but even so he decided to give it a try”.

Mathias sighed.

“We can’t say his name anymore” he mumbled. It was an SI:7 tradition: when someone died everyone avoided saying their name out loud unless it was strictly necessary, and he wouldn’t allow anyone saying Flynn’s name. It was something so sacred, so important to him, so… painful. Valeera seemed to understand.

“Pain is a tool, Shaw” she said at the time she turned around to leave. “Use it in your favor”.

“Hold on” she stopped when Mathias spoke. He did not know how to ask for it, so he just said it. “Will you help me? He… went for this. In his last voyage”.

Valeera looked at him over her shoulder, then nodded and returned to him.

She didn’t say a thing for the lid’s inscription and he was grateful for that. Apparently, the box had no lockers, but actually it had several, all of them hidden amongst pieces of loosen wood. Had Mathias done this alone, it would have taken a couple of hours, mostly because his eyes would not stop getting clouded behind his tears, and even some of them would betray him and fall over the box. Valeera, Light blessed her, said nothing at all.

When the lid jumped open, they found inside a lot of wet straw that stinked algae and stagnant water, but under the straw there was a key. Nothing special at simple sight, but once Mathias took it and turned it around between his hands, he found out that actually it had details: there was a tentacle forming the space used to put it on a keychain, and the rest of said tentacle formed the shaft of the key. There were some strange inscriptions over the tentacle.

“A key… what opens?” Said Valeera.

“I don’t know. My agents found it”. 

Anyone would have said that Flynn died for nothing. A key that no one knows what opens. But Mathias knew. And he knew that Valeera knew as well. He needed to get rid of her.

“If there’s a key, then there’s a door” she said slowly, not taking her eyes away from the key. She was suspicious. “You know what it can possibly be?”

“No” he was lying, of course, but he didn’t feel bad. After all, they both were spies: lies were their trade. 

They bid goodbye but as she walked away, Valeera kept looking at him, knowing he was lying but unable to demonstrate how. And that was fine. 

No one needed to know about the door under the SI:7 quarter’s basement.

  
  


⚓

  
  


Mathias stopped in front of the basement’s door. He ordered that no one should come to bother him and no one made questions. After all, everyone at the SI:7 were in lute. Agents were lost everyday, in every mission, but that was their business. Same as soldiers, but unlike them, the agents knew they were just peons. No matter if one die, two, or ten die, the mission must be successful, since that bit of information can prevent that someone important dies. Or discover that someone has been supplanted by a demon. 

Spies were disposable. Everyone had made their pace with that and that was something that made Mathias feel proud. But Flynn was different. Everyone was fond of Flynn. How they couldn’t? He used to buy snacks for everyone, to bring coffee and tea on cold, long nights when Mathias couldn’t return home and he was actually the only one to properly mourn the death of every agent. He even made space in a small corner for said spies, where he would place a personal object of them, literally anything, even a pencil, and he brought flowers. Every day there were fresh flowers. 

Until he left, and there were now dried only petals. Oh Flynn would have been mad because no one changed the flowers, but he would have forgiven them immediately. 

Flynn’s shell necklace was now in that corner and someone was bringing fresh flowers.

Yes, everyone mourned Flynn’s loss. Not only because he was the boss’s partner, but because all of them had at least one funny, personal memory with the expirate. He was so, so very loved, at least in the SI:7. That’s why all of them were angry at Anduin. They shared his opinion: if Mathias had been allowed to go, if his “duties” weren’t so important, perhaps Flynn wouldn’t have died. Yes, true, maybe the ship would have been sunked anyway, but if Mathias had been there, he could have gotten hold of Flynn’s body and dragged him out. They would have given them one of those fancy ships with a localizer. noticed that something happened and sent help. Now he didn’t even know where his corpse was. 

As soon as he entered the basement, he closed the door but did not stop: he continued until he reached the end wall, and behind a library he touched three bricks. A small portion of the wall moved, wide enough for someone to crawl inside. So, Mathias did.

His grandma showed him this place when she was training him.

“Absolutely no one else must know about this place, Mathias” she told him that day. He was 12. “Everyone else are just peons that can die while you flee, shall the city or the quarters be under attack. Remember: the game ends once the King falls, and you are not a peon. You are the Horse, and your duty is to prevent the King from falling”.

It was a kind of emergency escape haven. The room was small, with a hatch leading to a kind of pit of water. If you were able to hold your breath enough, you could reach the Canals, the side that was right in front of the Keep. Luckily he never had to use it, until now. There were two enhanced boxes: one filled with food and water, the other with potions of water breathing, invisibility, antidotes and healing. He made sure to change the potions and rations once per year, just in case.

That place… Edwin and him used to hide here from Pathonia, and to have a moment for themselves every once in a while after she died. It was truly a haven for them. He still remembered the last time he was here with Edwin, and the first and only time he brought Flynn.

“Hey, what are those markings?” Flynn asked that time. The edges of the hatch were marked with strange inscriptions. Neither him nor Pathonia ever knew what they meant, and actually, this hatch had been here since before she founded the guild, only that she took advantage. “And look, it has a lock” he said, pointing to the door. 

“Yeah, but it doesn’t have a key. It has been open since my grandmother found it” answered Mathias, which made Flynn laugh and shook his head.

“Bollocks. Every lock has a key, if you know where to search”.

And now… Mathias had the key. The markings on the tentacles, the strange signature, everything fit perfectly. Remembering Flynn was like a punch on his stomach, making him feel like losing his breath at once and his eyes burn, so in a vague attempt to avoid the pain, he opened the hatch: dark water could be seen at the bottom. He closed the door again, put the key in the lock, and turned it. 

The key moved without resistance, activating the mechanism inside the lock, and he could feel how the hatch closed. But, at the same time he was able to hear something heavy dropping into the water, and eventually something metallic hitting the bottom, and the markings around the hatch’s door and over the key began to glow. With a soft grunt he turned the key once more and opened the hatch.

Amongst the darkness and way down the pit he was able to see a metallic box. He wouldn’t have been able to see it, had it not been because the box was covered in the same strange, red markings that covered the edges of the hatch and the key, strangely glowing under the water.

Without thinking twice (unlike him) he took his shoulder pads off and jumped into the water.

The water was cold, but calm. Odd, since usually it was NOT calm due to the current that led to the Canals, but now… Well, he couldn’t care less right now.

He swam and swam down the pit until he reached the box, but right when he took hold of it something dark and big passed at his side. That was weird, usually the fishes avoided this-

When he turned around, he saw Flynn -Flynn’s corpse, actually. His skin was gray, his auburn hair floating around him like a creepy aura, with barnacles crawling over his cheek. His corpse was trapped between a rock and corals, his leg under heavy debris of the ship, and coat was tangled among the corals, He was missing an arm.

Mathias was paralized, feeling his body strangely numb, not even noticing how he was losing his contained breath. Flynn. Flynn. That’s what happened? Flynn, the beloved, friendly Flynn ended up being abandoned in the deep of the sea, like fish food. All those smiles, their talks, the dances in the middle of the kitchen, the jokes between beer and beer, their kisses under the stars… everything that once was meaningful came down into this. Fish food.

And why? Because Mathias couldn’t go with him he didn’t receive the Alliance’s full protection? Because he had to stay searching for a bitch that no one had seen in ages?

It happened with Edwin as well. No one listened, no one around the Crown. The nobility preferred listen to Katrana, who was actually Onyxia, in order to keep their gold safe, their fucking gold, leaving the workers without money, without food to feed their families, the same workers who bleed for Stormwind. They preferred to murder him. And also they murdered Flynn by sending him to retrieve a key that now he was sure had nothing to do with Sylvanas.

And he murdered them as well. He murdered Flynn by standing by the Crown. He murdered Edwin by standing by the Crown. 

Now, neither of them were here. The pain was undescriptible. He screamed of rage, of pain, no matter that he was breathless now, no matter that the water swallowed his scream, the dozens of bubbles that shot outside his mouth and broke the surface of the water were the only sign of his pain.

_ Trading in secrets, trading in lies, operating on the fringes are all the Spymaster knows. _

Mathias slowly turned to the box that glowed between his arms. It was whispering to him.

_ His lost passions, lost loves are all gone, crushed under his own duty and loyalty to the crown. _

“Nothing is left” he mumbled softly, the bubbles taking his breath away. “Nothing but the pain”.

_ Pain is an apt tutor and tool and one in which the Void knows intimately. Wear my mask if you dare to feel the many forms pain can take. _

Edwin. He couldn’t save him.

But perhaps he could still save Flynn.

He felt the box become lighter and for some reason it didn’t surprise him that the material, whatever it was, melted away in black sea foam, freeing a kind of mask. It was a strange, full head mask, the front of it shaped as an octopus, like the faceless minions. 

Then, he knew what he was doing. He knew what would happen. He didn’t care.

“We are all murders” he whispered while he put the mask on.

Then he knew what to do. He could feel a list of duties appearing inside his mind. He accepted.

The Spymaster Mathias Shaw entered the pit alone. The Overlord Mathias Shaw came out, his skin, hair, clothes, eyes, everything in him completely dark in void power, carrying in his arms the new Dread Captain Flynn Fairwind, who now instead of his missing arm had now an octopus, whose tentacles wrapped around the main; some of then around the shoulders and chest to better hold, one directly in his spine, and the rest acting as arm and hand. He was pale, with crawly crabs and barnacles crawling on him, but Flynn was here. 

And boy, Mathias could see everything. He could see how the Void was getting over Umbric, he could see Alleria falling to the whispers and Anduin- oh he was going to enjoy this.

He left Flynn on the floor, closed the hatch and pulled the key away: now there was an unblink orange eye staring at him directly where once was the keychain hole.

He put his shoulderpads on once more and Flynn began to move and twitch. The Overlord waited patiently until he would open his eyes and grinned at the sight of the gills that appeared at the sides of his neck.

When Flynn opened his eyes, they were black and orange now. He turned around and when their gazes locked, they grinned at each other.

“Mathias,” he whispered as he slowly got up. “You look… magnificent”.

“You too, Flynn”.

“Mathias, I saw… beautiful things” Flynn got closer to him, slowly. “I saw wonderful things, terrible and wonderful things, I saw-”

The Overlord put a finger over Flynn’s cold, scaly lips. There was no need, and Flynn understood. Mathias saw the Sunken City as well.

“Let us go. You have an ocean to reign, and I a city to take”.

When they returned to the basement, two agents arrived in a hurry.

“Master Shaw! The city is under attack! There is a faceless one in front of the quarters-!”

They both stopped at the sight of them. One of them tried to run, but Flynn raised his tentacle arm, which elongated stunningly quickly to wrap itself around the spy’s throat to break it, letting him fall. 

The other Spy did not seem to mind. He stared unblinking at Mathias, almost agape, then soon dropped on his knees. 

“You said?” Asked Mathias. 

“There is a Faceless one in front of the quarters. He has Valeera”.

“Then let’s see what he has to say”.

Before he kept going, though, he turned to Flynn, who smiled back. 

“Don’t worry, Mattie. The waters are mine now”.

Mathias nodded and Flynn turned around to return to the hidden hatch. 

Once the Overlord walked outside to have a better view of the city, he was pleased at the sight of the dark, already corrupted waters of the Canals, its corruption slowly spreading to the sea. Umbric, at the Mage District, was already opening portals to allow the arrival of more of the N’zoth’s minions. Alleria murdering and quickly taking the Cathedral Square. Cultists were slowly taking the Trade District and already breaking down civilians. And in the Keep-

“Overlord?” An agent arrived, but he saw her coming. “What do you see?”

“Everything” he said. “I can see everything. N’zoth has granted me sight”.

And he wouldn’t let Flynn out of his sight, ever again.

“I understand. Orders?”

“Just do it. Kill everyone who will not submit to N’zoth”.

She nodded and turned around to run and deliver his orders, leaving Mathias behind, pleased at the sight of the City quickly falling to the Old Gods power and Flynn killing all the life in the waters.

There is nothing left. Only pain. And at the end, we all are murderers. 

**Author's Note:**

> That was it. Hope ya'all liked it.


End file.
